"Common Sense" is all too often little more than a substitute for ignorance and prejudice. It rejects the carefully thought-out argument for instant thoughtless reactions. It is usually wrong.
UnCommon Sense tries to look at issues from a more complex and considered point of view. "Common Sense" is simplistic, UnCommon Sense is deals with the the world as far more complex than many would have us believe.

Wednesday, 14 September 2016

Vacuous Arguments from a Hoover Salesman

“Sir” James Dyson is a man who got very rich from selling
overpriced vacuum cleaners, one of the reasons he got rich was because he could
export production from Berkshire to Malaysia, which he did just after showing
her Majesty the Queen around his factory near Reading. This enabled him to
benefit from low wages and dire conditions of work for those desperate enough
to need employment in his Malaysian plant.

Today however he has gone from trying to sell us hoovers to trying to sell us Brexit. Claiming leaving the EU and the single market will
enable Britain to negotiate better trade deals with other countries in the
world. Almost in the same breath he also claims that exporters don't need trade deals in order to export
around the world. In other words you don't need trade deals to export but we
need trade deals to export. One would have thought that someone who describes
himself as a “scientist” would have been rather better than this at thinking
logically.

BTW he has also deliberately omitted eliminating Non-Tariff Barriers to trade which come with trade agreements and which are likely to present far greater
problems for exporters.

It is a function of our failing neoliberal economic system
that throws up very high differences in wealth, exaggerating the success of
some people who like to present themselves as particularly innovative
entrepreneurs. One upshot of this is that the media routinely gives these
people who are largely wealthy due to luck and the polarising effect of
neoliberalism airtime and column inches to preach their “wisdom” as though they
represent the messiahs of capitalism.

In this instance however Dyson has exposed himself as no-one
special, with no particular insight into anything as his vacuous logic is
splashed unquestioningly over our media.

He should stick to selling Hoovers rather than lies about
Brexit. We have already been sold too many of those.